Should I wait for Haswell?

Ok things are looking up for me, I'm may be getting some money in Feb. If so, I can then build a new system. However with being Haswell around the cornerthen , should I wait for it, or go ahead with an Ivy Bridge CPU?

Not enough information to answer yet. We don't know exactly what Haswell will bring performance-wise. It seems to bring IPC improvements, but we don't know if those improvements come at a cost in clockspeed, and anyway we don't know how large they are. On the other hand, you don't state anything about your use case, so even if we knew all of the above, it would still be guesswork.

Short version: check back in February and maybe someone can give a better answer.

There is rarely much point in thinking "what's around the corner" unless something has actually been announced as having some killer feature that you absolutely cannot do without.

Haswell is going to be a bit faster than IB (CPU) and from what I've read at Anandtech, they are focusing particularly heavily on reducing idle power compared to IB. That said, compared to a Pentium D, almost anything 'modern' (ie last three years or so) will be sipping power whilst leaving it in the dust, by comparison. For instance...and the Pentium EE probably has an idle power of about 100W, compared with maybe 25W for the SB.

By the time you have the money in your hands, we will probably know more. Until then, you may as well have a read of this.

The better question is do you ever plan on upgrading a cpu while keeping the same MB? Ivy Bridge is the end of socket 1155. Haswell and the tock after Haswell will use 1150.

If you want a new system now then buy a new system now. You seem to keep machines a while given that you're running a Pentium D machine, so if you're that worried about Haswell you could build a cheaper Ivy Bridge Pentium/Core i3 system now, and wait and see what Haswell or the tock after it will offer you before going crazy.

Take heart in the fact that whatever you end up with, it will be enormously quicker and more power efficient than what you have now. This isn't a slight on your personal circumstances, merely a statement based on the progress the CPU industry has made in the last 10 years or so.

The only thing that distinctly bugs me right now is the 4GB of RAM and spinning disk...I'd really like to jump on the SSD bandwagon. But upgrading DDR2 memory is much pricier than DDR3, so seems like a waste at this stage. SSDs aren't cheap either, though they could carry over to a new system easily.

The main trouble is that I really don't have a distinct use case for something newer...I'd just like something faster. Funny to think that for a near five year old CPU. So I've been debating with myself if I should hold out a bit longer until the amount of memory in here really becomes a drag, which I figure will nicely correspond to Haswell's release time. Or just go for it now.

My prime advice for the question when to buy a new system is always "when you need it". And if you can wait, then wait.

If you can live with what you have, waiting will always give you price drops or a newer, better generation. Chances are there will always be something coming soon that you would like to have. And whenever you buy, stuff's going to be cheaper in a month or two and better gear might be available. (Floods and exploding fabs contradict that, but are very hard to predict )The later you buy, the later your new stuff will be too old.

There might be exceptions for not too common use cases where it might be worth holding out or no use to do so, but I fail to see that here.

@ GopherMobile

Get a good SSD. It will be a world of difference for most things, even if you fail to make use of all the potential performance and maybe have only SATA II. In your next system, you can just keep the SSD, as you said. If it's slow by the standards of the time you build your new system, it has saved you from needing to buy a new one long enough to be worth the money you spent.

I went from *exactly* that setup to a 2600K/16GB over a year ago. It was a pretty crazy improvement to me. I kept the 5850 at the time and just recently upgraded that, mostly because of borderlands 2 and a few other titles where the 5850 starts choking a little at 1080p with details.

A quad core Ivy Bridge, nice ssd and RAM will make you wonder wtf happened.

No offense intended, but you've been posting threads on "when should I upgrade" and "what should I buy?" seemingly every both for the past year or more?

All I can say is whenever you actually have the money to upgrade, well, worry about it then. Til then you seem to be expending more than enough time and energy on a purchase that has yet to materialize.

Some people seem to impulse buy without any research, you appear to be waaaaaay over the other side of the spectrum.

But (completely without checking or anything...) it seems like for the last six months or more you have posted a thread every couple of weeks asking about this or that aspect of something that you still today don't have the money to build.

That isn't a big deal or anything, but you could just wait until you actually had funds in hand and then shop for the components that are available for purchase at that time, and you would do just fine.

That isn't a big deal or anything, but you could just wait until you actually had funds in hand and then shop for the components that are available for purchase at that time, and you would do just fine.

A lot of things changed since I last built/upgraded a system, such as PSU connectors, SATA is standard now, and so is PCIe. From where I'm at, it looks like I'm going have to relearn how to build a computer again.

That isn't a big deal or anything, but you could just wait until you actually had funds in hand and then shop for the components that are available for purchase at that time, and you would do just fine.

A lot of things changed since I last built/upgraded a system, such as PSU connectors, SATA is standard now, and so is PCIe. From where I'm at, it looks like I'm going have to relearn how to build a computer again.

Yeah, and a whole lot of things have changed since your first "HAY GUYS What should I build?!?!?!" thread low those many month ago.

Again, not a big deal, but if I were you I think I'd be concerned that by the time I was actually ready to, you know, buy something, that many people would have written me off as a repeat offender in the time waster category.

Again, not a big deal, but if I were you I think I'd be concerned that by the time I was actually ready to, you know, buy something, that many people would have written me off as a repeat offender in the time waster category.

Well I guess when I do get the money, I'll put "I NOW HAVE MONEY" in the title.

From where I'm at, it looks like I'm going have to relearn how to build a computer again.

Eh, not really. Some of the connectors changed and you can install Windows 7 from a USB stick, but most of the things are the same.

If you're that financially strapped, it doesn't make sense to wait for Haswell. You won't see Haswell trickle down into Pentium or Celeron parts for a while. You'd be better served by a Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge Pentium.

You're using a system that was outclassed by the very first Core 2 CPUs released in 2006. It's almost 2013. It's something of a minor miracle your HDDs still work, too.

Also, keep in mind that January through March is inventory season. Retailers will allow inventory to dry up for tax purposes. Don't expect there to be a wide selection of components until April.

If you're that financially strapped, it doesn't make sense to wait for Haswell. You won't see Haswell trickle down into Pentium or Celeron parts for a while. You'd be better served by a Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge Pentium.

Why not go through the Angora or something? You could build a vastly better system for peanuts - Core2 Duo's with motherboards go for almost nothing, since they aren't really worth keeping around for most people.

Alternative, you'd be well served by an IvyBridge class system, which, when Haswell rolls around, will be fairly cheap. IB is still wickedly fast.

The better question is do you ever plan on upgrading a cpu while keeping the same MB? Ivy Bridge is the end of socket 1155. Haswell and the tock after Haswell will use 1150.

If you want a new system now then buy a new system now. You seem to keep machines a while given that you're running a Pentium D machine, so if you're that worried about Haswell you could build a cheaper Ivy Bridge Pentium/Core i3 system now, and wait and see what Haswell or the tock after it will offer you before going crazy.

Are there Ivy Bridge CPUs that use the 1150 socket? I'm planning on building a new rig, but I might be convinced to hold off if I know there's going to be a new socket coming soon, and the current chips won't be comaptible.

The better question is do you ever plan on upgrading a cpu while keeping the same MB? Ivy Bridge is the end of socket 1155. Haswell and the tock after Haswell will use 1150.

If you want a new system now then buy a new system now. You seem to keep machines a while given that you're running a Pentium D machine, so if you're that worried about Haswell you could build a cheaper Ivy Bridge Pentium/Core i3 system now, and wait and see what Haswell or the tock after it will offer you before going crazy.

Are there Ivy Bridge CPUs that use the 1150 socket? I'm planning on building a new rig, but I might be convinced to hold off if I know there's going to be a new socket coming soon, and the current chips won't be comaptible.

No, Sandy and Ivy Bridge will be using 1155 only. 1150 will likely be only Haswell and Broadwell. Sandy/Ivy Bridge are fast enough as is that I doubt waiting for Haswell will get you anything, the CPU performance increase from Ivy to Haswell is likely going to be similar to that of Sandy to Ivy, Intel seems more interested in trying to catch up (and if early demo chips have demonstrated, totally destroy) AMD's lead in the iGPU market, as well as further integrate motherboard components into the CPU, like the VRM being part of the CPU.

Haswell, like Ivy, will bring improvements that will make the biggest difference on mobile devices. Stuff like power consumption and improved integrated graphics are not likely to provide much benefit over what we have now. Ivy is already very good with power, and desktop users are likely good with it's IGP, or would be using a discrete graphics card anyways.